


Watch You Breathe In Watch You Breathing Out

by immortalbanner



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: COVID-19, Character Study, Gen, M/M, Nicky is a nurse, Nicky | Nicolo di Genova Centric, Post-Canon, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:48:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28286487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/immortalbanner/pseuds/immortalbanner
Summary: Nicky knew he couldn't control plagues but that didn't mean he couldn't still try to save lives.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 6
Kudos: 121





	Watch You Breathe In Watch You Breathing Out

**Author's Note:**

> This idea came after I listened to Folklore for the 50 billionth time and I finally grasped the meaning of Epiphany. After understanding the parallels Taylor was going for, I thought about how Nicky was a medic and the likelihood of him being an ICU nurse during COVID and...here we are.

Nicky knocked on the apartment door. Two quick knocks, one in a space between. It was a muscle memory, he and Joe would use it in their early days together. When their truce was hanging on a thread and neither was sure if the other would kill him in his sleep.

Joe opened the door and Nicky slipped in. Andy was already in her room and Nile handed Joe the empty washing basket before slipping into her own room. Joe held the basket as Nicky stripped down his clothes and put them into the basket. He kept himself small as he walked to the bathroom, Joe behind him so he could put the clothes into the washing machine.

As the hot water hit his body, Joe watched him for a few moments through the steamed glass. Nicky tilted his head back and let the hot water hit his face, just so he wouldn’t have to see the concern in Joe’s eyes.

Joe left him alone and Nicky continued his shower.

2020 had been an exhausting year. They had barely recovered from being captured by the pharmaceutical company and Booker’s betrayal. Now traveling discreetly wasn’t easy and there was the worry of Andy being exposed to COVID. They could lay low in their apartment in New York City easily. It just got boring very quickly.

Nile had decided she would use quarantine to complete as many puzzles as possible.

Andy had become obsessed with watching true crime videos on YouTube.

Joe had decided to get back into painting, trying to find use in acrylic paint instead of oil.

Nicky made the not so difficult decision to apply as a nurse in a hospital’s COVID unit.

Not long after Booker’s exile, Nile had asked them if they were still able to get sick.

“No. We’ve been in many plagues, we’ve been around those sick. I assume our immune systems act like our healing,” Nicky had explained. It hopefully meant that Andy’s immune system wouldn’t shut down from the common cold and kill her within a few days due to never having been exposed to the virus.

Plagues were always a tiring time. The black death had felt never ending as it devastated so many lives. The influenza outbreak barely 100 years ago felt so recent. The dancing plague seemed like a joke. AIDs felt too personal and horrific to watch, while people like Ronald Reagan had refused to even call it by its name and gave people a whole new reason to pass judgment on himself and Joe.

COVID19 seemed to unlock so many people’s own selfishness. Nile had shown him videos of people having borderline temper tantrums over having to wear a mask in a supermarket. Meanwhile, Nicky would walk into work to hear someone had contracted it from their job at a supermarket.

When he was dried off and dressed in the clothes Joe had left for him, he found Andy and Nile back in the lounge while Joe sat by a window with his easel and canvas. Nile had shown Andy how to play YouTube on the TV so Andy had started to watch a video on the Zodiac Killer while Nile continued her puzzle.

He was about to go straight to the kitchen before Joe stood up. As if he’d expected this behaviour, which he would at this point. They knew each other so well that at one point Booker, not very long after meeting them, had genuinely asked if they were able to read each other’s minds.

Joe took his wrist gently and pushed the book into his hands. It was the one he was currently in the middle of. Nicky took it and Joe kissed his cheek and returned to his painting.

Dinner came in the form of leftover Chinese takeaway. They all joined Andy at the TV, Nile taking the empty armchair and Joe and Nicky sitting together on the floor. Joe still had paint on his hands that he would have to remind him to wash off later.

They had put the news on and it felt so hollow to hear everything. Nile had suggested for Nicky to go and eat in his room so he could have a break. He didn’t leave Joe’s side, he couldn’t let himself forget the state of the world.

While the reporter talked about the new cases, the new deaths, the numbers in ICU, his vision turned blurry. Joe tucked his arm around his hips. Nicky fell into his warmth, allowing it to ground him at least a little.

* * *

His badge read “Nicholas Evans, RN, Intensive Care Unit”. As far as anyone cared, he was twenty-eight years old, he was barely out of residency, he had moved from Italy to go to school, he had a husband who no one had met and had taken the last name of, and COVID was the biggest thing he had ever gone through in his short life.

Nicky had seen a lot in his years. Too much. COVID was a horrible thing, and he didn’t like to compare tragedies he’d seen. Part of him knew he’d seen worse but no horrible thing can be looked at with a smile or ease.

Andy had always said that was his best quality. He kept onto his humanity better than anyone. Even if he no longer believed that saying a few words or lighting a candle would help the deceased, he still believed people’s pain was always worthy of attention.

He had a very short lunch break where he scoffed down a sandwich and made sure he had no missed calls or texts on his phone. Copley had provided the team with phones that looked like smart phones but they’d been hardwired with a level of high tech security that Nicky wouldn’t even be able to begin to understand. All he knew was that they didn’t have to run through burner phones anymore and he could take pictures of himself and Joe without the risk of breech. It reminded him of when Joe got a Polaroid camera and hid away the photos they took.

He had a few minutes to sit but he opted to keep standing. He wasn’t someone who should be resting when so many people were suffering and it was down to him and a handful of other people to help.

When his break was over, he washed his hands, put on his gown, his mask, his goggles, his face shield, his gloves.

He walked back into the ICU like it was battle.

* * *

Copley had started to show them what pictures he had found of them in case any held memories that they had wanted to keep. Or maybe it was morbid intrigue of the stories behind them.

One that had struck Nicky had been during World War II.

It was him, in his medic uniform, during one of the battles in North Africa. He was over someone who had passed that he’d tried to revive. It was the aftermath of that, when Joe had came to his side to stop him and give him a shoulder to cry on, as Nicky had to accept he hadn’t been able to save another person.

Joe’s arms had been around him as he mumbled into his skin, “I tried so hard, Yusuf.”

Joe had kissed his head and pulled him in even closer. The photo was taken sometime after that. They hadn’t even known there was a photo of them.

That memory told him that things would never get easier.

He had left home that day with only a few hours of sleep, Joe still asleep next to him. He had been asleep when he came home the previous night. He only had toast when he got home to carry him through. He’d left a note on Joe’s bedside table to say he had came home in the night and had to leave early.

He took the subway to work. Days usually had him making brief eye contact with people who saw his scrubs. He was so used to disappearing into the shadows that people staring at him made him instinctively want to go smaller.

When he got to the hospital he put on his PPE and started to work.

The ICU unit felt like it was all in black and white. Nurses on their feet, patients in bed.

The absence of family reminded him of all the soldiers he’d had to watch die.

He brought food to a patient that had been there for a week. She was a forty year old woman, asthmatic, had two daughters and a husband. He hadn’t had the chance to meet any of them.

“Oh look, it’s my favourite nurse,” she smiled at him as he set her food on her table.

He smiled at her as he went to drain her urine bag. “Hope the food is good.”

“I’ve never liked hospital food.”

After he had tossed away her urine, he returned to her. He wasn’t sure if she had much time left but he felt ill over the idea of being lonely.

“You don’t get to see your family much, do you?” she asked idly, taking bites of her toast. There was a light coat of butter on top. It was the most she had been able to handle.

He shrugged. “I don’t have much family left.”

“Are you married?”

He nodded. “Yes. His name’s Joe.”

She gave a warm smile, green eyes tired. “How long have you two been together?”

He swallowed a lump in his throat. He’d always hated that question. How could he pack over 900 years with the love of his life into mortal years? “Ten years. We met in university. Practically love at first sight.”

Lying was a survival tactic. It was still so new to even allow more people to be aware of the relationship in such a casual way instead of plausible deniability. Joe enjoyed making up new versions of how they had met when the situation called for it. They’d had to learn to laugh at the truth, and it was so long ago that they could. They had to. There was a sense in hilarity in meeting your soulmate in a battlefield, in a war you didn’t wholly want to fight in, to die by their blade, wake up next to them in a sea of death, and kill each other until you’re almost desensitised to it.

That was their truth but most people would never know.

Her face softened. “You’re so young. By the time your my age I hope you’re not ready to tear his throat out.”

He let out a breath. He could barely remember forty at that point. At the time it was only him and Joe and they had been together for eight years. It had definitely felt like eight years back then, as they both slowly grew used to time in immorality. He had barely been able to understand what to expect 100 years with Yusuf would look like. Now they just rounded up to 1000 years like the 80 year difference meant nothing.

He just gave the woman a smile. “I’m sure we have nothing to worry about.”

He moved onto the other patients and continued to put his energy into everyone but himself.

* * *

It was three in the morning when he woke up to tears on his face and Joe pulling him close to him.

Joe rubbed his back as Nicky curled closer to him. He felt like he was grounded just by the familiar touch and press of Joe.

“Do you want to talk about it, hayati?” Joe asked, kissing his cheek.

He swallowed as he pushed away the memories of recent wars, of the people he couldn’t save from their wounds. “No.”

“Okay.”

He continued to hold him, rubbing his back gently. Nicky held onto him like he was at risk of falling.

He fell asleep knowing he’d have to repeat the morning all over again.

* * *

One of the older nurses — Margot — came into work with a sour look on her face.

Nicky exchanged a look with one of the other nurses, Amanda. “You okay, Margot?” she asked.

She sighed and sat on her chair in the break room. “I went grocery shopping last night. This woman came up to me, tapped me on the damn shoulder, and said I didn’t have to wear a mask.”

Nicky gripped his seat tightly. “What did you say?” he asked. He had yet to encounter someone like that himself but he’d heard plenty of stories. Nile and Joe went to do grocery shopping as a quick break from quarantine, both wearing masks, and they had seen someone yell at a worker for not being allowed to go into the shop without a mask.

“Told her to not touch me. And if I can wear a N95 for as long as I do then she can wear a goddamn surgical mask in Target.” Her face fell into her hands. “Why do people do this shit?”

“People have always been ignorant. It’s just… history repeating itself,” Nicky said. He hated that there was truth to his statement. Andy was more pessimistic and he tried not to be, but it got so exhausting to be the voice of hope all the time.

“My girlfriend deals with people like that all day,” Amanda said. “She works at Starbucks so it’s not like it would be long.”

Nicky gave a sympathetic look. He took a bite of the sandwich Joe had made for him, slowly chewing it. “I’m so scared to infect my friends. I just shower immediately when I get home.”

It was only Andy he was worried about. They still weren’t sure how easily it could be spread and there were chances it could kill Andy. So they did the sensible thing and made sure Nicky was stripped and washed so any traces that could’ve gotten on him were down the drain.

Margot gave him a sad look. “I know how it feels. I get scared to hug my kids after work. It’s… too much.”

They fall silent, eating and drinking and building themselves up as if they were going into war.

* * *

He had that day off because legally at that point, he had to have one.

Nicky slept in for the day. Joe brought him a glass of water which he’d only had a few sips from.

When he was able to pull himself out of bed he took a shower. He dressed in an over-sized shirt and tracksuit pants. They might’ve been something Joe had picked up. They shared clothes for convenience since they were the same sizes generally. He did like the added benefit of his clothes usually smelling like Joe.

Joe was still painting and Andy and Nile were watching a true crime documentary. There was a big bowl of popcorn between the girls. Joe had two mugs in front of him. Nile had bought him two mugs, one that said ‘paint water’ and another that said ‘not paint water’ as a joke gift. He’d been using them because there’d been plenty of the times in the past that the unfortunate event of Joe drinking the wrong mug had occurred.

He collapsed in the arm chair, only half watching the documentary. He watched Joe a little too. He liked watching him focus on his art. He had some red paint on his cheekbone and green in his beard where his chin was. He hadn’t painted for a while. In their early days, he would be ready to trade his food for good oil paint. Now that acrylic paint was as easily accessible as it was, Joe liked the leisure of it. Nicky had always found it endearing, even before they were together. When he would trade bread for new oil paint, Nicky split his ration and gave it to him.

Nile looked at him for a moment, worry on her face. Nicky wasn’t in the best state. There were prominent bags under his eyes and he hadn’t bothered to brush his hair. He probably felt more tired than he looked.

They had moved onto a new documentary when Joe pulled himself from his canvas and sat between his legs. Nicky smiled, out of habit combing his curls between his fingers.

They watched the TV in silence. Nicky didn’t really care about the case, he just needed a few minutes of peace. He’d had back to back twelve hour shifts. He’d had to watch so many people die of something that should’ve been preventable.

It was late when they’d finished watching the documentary series. Nicky had to go to bed soon. He was dreading repeating everything all over again for God knew how long.

Joe stood up and stretched his arms over his head, saying something about making tea. He had a particular way he’d liked to make it. Nicky had heard his extremely long rants about tea bags.

Nile went to take a shower. Andy was looking for something else to watch.

They sat in silence until she spoke. “You don’t have to do it, you know.”

He swallowed. “Yes I do.”

She turned to look at him. Her face was soft and careful. “No, Nicky. You really don’t.”

“If I can even make the smallest dent, then it’s worth something.”

“But you can’t save them. It’s a plague.”

A tear ran down his face. “I know. It’s just… it’s so wrong people can go away so easily by an illness.”

“Yes. It’s fucked up Nicky. But I don’t like watching you kill yourself like this. You don’t have to work yourself to the bone.”

He did, he had to. He can’t let people suffer like this, even if it’s a plague he could find a way to keep people alive for as long as possible. Surely he could.

He really had to go back to nursing. Get updated information. He went in the 1990’s. Joe had tagged along to do a Bachelor of Arts in History. They had pretended they had met there as a cover. That included pretending to go on a first date and engrossed into the role when they’d had made love later. It was a lot like their first time, only with lube instead of misused oil.

“I don’t know why I do it either sometimes.” His voice was hollow and he watched Joe prepare the tea. It would be a nice thing to have before he went to sleep.

Andy let out a long sigh. “Because you’re a good person Nicky. More than one I think you give yourself credit for.”

He smiled a little. He hoped that was what it came down to.

Joe came back with two mugs. He handed one to Andy and the other to Nicky. He grabbed his own and sat on the armrest of Nicky’s armchair. “She’s right. I don’t want you to burn yourself out. I don’t get why you’re doing it.”

He shrugged, taking a sip of his tea. “Why does anyone do it? Why hasn’t everyone just quit?”

“That’s different. You specifically signed up for it.” Joe looked down at him with sad eyes. “I just, I don’t want you to traumatise yourself through this.”

His throat had gone dry. He took another sip of his tea before he replied. “Because I’m not going to die from this. I’m not risking anything for myself. So I can’t let one more person risk themselves and their families.”

Joe put his hand on his shoulder to steady himself as he kissed his head. “Okay. Do this for as long as you think you need to.”

“Mhm,” he hummed in response. He just hoped he would survive this in his own way.

* * *

He woke up before his alarm. He got out of bed, careful not to wake Joe.

He slipped into their bathroom. His eyes were red and had dark circles under them. He had been growing out his beard just because he was too tired to shave. Joe liked him with a beard, he’d had one when they’d met, which tended to be his only motivation to keep it. He’d grown into a habit of shaving lately.

His hair was growing out, brushing against his ears. Maybe he’d grow it out to his jaw, he liked his hair on the longer side when he was able to manage it.

He splashed cold water onto his face and brushed his teeth. No need to waste time.

He pulled on his scrubs, took the lunch Joe had made for him from the bench, and walked into battle.


End file.
